1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a backlight assembly and a display apparatus including the backlight assembly. More particularly, the present invention relates to a backlight assembly with a lesser overall thickness than conventional backlight assemblies and a display apparatus including the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a liquid crystal display (hereinafter, referred to as LCD) apparatus includes a backlight assembly disposed under an LCD panel for generating light and guiding the light to the LCD panel. However, conventional backlight assemblies typically contribute significantly to an increase in the weight, volume and power consumption of the LCD apparatus. The above-mentioned drawbacks of conventional backlight assemblies become even more pronounced in a portable LCD apparatus which requires a lighter weight, a smaller thickness and lower power consumption for the LCD apparatus.
In order to overcome the above drawbacks of the conventional backlight assemblies, a light emitting diode (hereinafter, referred to as LED), which is a kind of a point light source, has been utilized as part of the backlight assembly of a recent LCD apparatus.
The LED requires lower power consumption as compared to other conventional light sources and is suitable for use with a portable LCD apparatus being of lightweight and of small thickness. In particular, the irradiation distance, which is the distance between a light source and a display panel, is much shorter between an LED and a display panel than between other conventional light sources and the display panel. Therefore, the LED is much more widely utilized as a part of a backlight assembly as a light source of a backlight assembly for a small and medium sized display apparatus having a narrow display area.
However, when the LED is utilized as the light source for an LCD apparatus, various additional members, such as driving members for driving the LED and assembly members for assembling the LED to the LCD apparatus, are necessarily required as well as in addition to the LED itself. Consequently, the overall size of the LCD apparatus is increased due to the various additional members related to the LED.